posting stuff for review & critique by the pros

J

jimminy

New member
Hey, I was wondering if there's any way us non-pros can post wav files to get input by the pros here. I know we can attach small files, but wav's are bigger and I doubt we can attach anything more than a tiny snippet, though I can't find anything about what the limit is. Maybe I'll just try it sometime.

The idea is this: I would love to be able to post a piece of something, like just the acoustic guitar part, or a vocal, on an FTP site and get some feedback as to what the pro's would do to improve the sound, tell me what it lacks sonically, etc. Everything is subjective, sure, but its hard to develop a good frame of reference by listening to cd's, recorded on high end equipment in pro studios, with all kinds of processing. I'm just trying to develop my ears a little.

In fact, I wish there was a CD I could get with with just the dry tracks of various instruments, then the same thing with all the processing, then the whole thing mixed together before mastering. That way I could compare the professionally done stuff with my own on an instrument by instrument basis. Anyway, I'm digressing.
 
I have a slow phone line, an ok soundcard, and pretty small JBLs on this system so it's hard to make any real evaluations about a mix on this system. It takes forever to download a large file, and I hafta try to listen past the speakers to make any judgements at all, so I try to stay out of the critique business.

I can tell you what I might do to change something, but it's still just a judgement call by me as to whether it would improve the sound or not. It might not be appropriate for your concept of the song.

As far as hearing dry tracks to help get an idea of what processing does, that usually doesn't work, for me anyway. Most of my "processing" consists into choosing the right mic, finding the right placement, and adding eq if necessary - that is my main "processing". If any of those aren't right, no amount of compression, reverb or chorusing will fix the track usually.

If any instrument sounds a little uneven in level or exhibits too large a range of dynamics for the song, I'll tame it with a bit of eq. I may add some reverb to open up the space in the recording.

But, if something is getting swallowed or every instrument doesn't stand out clearly after doing all that, it's a sure sign you have arrangement problems and some instruments are fighting for the same acoustic space in the song.

You can sonetimes fix a problem with wide panning, and sometimes with drastic eq, but to me, it means the arrangement needs to be reexamined.

Listening to another person's mix is always hard, since you really don't know what demons he had to battle to get the mix to its current state.
 
Thanks for the response. I'm really less interested in the mix stage. Its more the tracking stage. I would just post to the mp3 section, but it seems it would be hard to listen to something like an mp3, which degrades the quality of the sound, to get feedback on the quality of the sound which is what I struggle with. Maybe an mp3 is good enough?

My room and monitors, and equipment in general, aren't good enough to really trust. I'm the process of fixing things up acoustically, but its a long process.

I find that often when I record something I know there is something not quite right, close, but I can't quite tell what the problem is exactly. Too much mid...maybe certain frequencies are too low or high, too much compression, etc., or mayve it's just my room and its actuall fine the way it is. Things that a pro would listen to for a second and go, "oh, way to much compression and put a 3db cut at 200hz, and just do this or that and it won't sound so muddy". Or "that might sound fine on it's own, but in a mix it's gonna be...", or," that preamp is absolute sh*t, it's ruining the sound, get rid of it"

Really, these are things that with enough knob fiddling I would probably eventually figure out. But it would be a great way to learn to have a pro, or someone with experience, who likes helping out guys like me to impart their expertice.
 
Wav. files are not as good as mp3s. do this:

1. go to: www.nowhereradio.com and regester for your free acount.

2. take your song and encode the whole thing (if you want) to a 192k mp3 (for best sound) then save it on your hard drive.

3. go back to nowhereradio.com and follow these steps:

click log in and type your user name and pass word

back, at the home page, click on artist administration (right side of your screen)

click add artist. and follow the instructions that it gives you.

after you have made a artist, then click "album manager" and then "add/edit songs" then "upload song"

on the next page click browse. find your mp3 on your hard drive and click on it. click ok.

next click upload. (note: most times the upload process only takes 3-5 min. but some times it can take up to 3 hours. it just depends on how fast your computer dial up is. it should not take more then 30 min. at the most.)

next type in the info on the song.

click "ok"

to listen to your song type your user name address (for exsample: if your user name is "Crazyboy", then type: www.nowhereradio.com/crazyboy/singles

if you have any problems, e-mail my friend Waldo, who is the owner of nowhere radio at waldo@nowhereradio.com

sorry for the long post,

zeke
 
thanks zeke-i did it and have a couple things there if you want to check it out. one's a clip of an acoustic gitar part, & already getting good feedback.

I just put a more complete song there too, & waiting for replies.

later,
jimminy
 
ZEKE SAYER said:
Wav. files are not as good as mp3s
Click to expand...
HUH??? Care to explain that one????????

WAVs are uncompressed digital audio files. MP3s are compressed using lossy compression techinques and as such, literally throw away a portion of the audio signal.....

From a sound quality point of view, WAVs are far superior to ANY MP3..........
 
Simple, Bruce - wav's aren't as good as MP3's, 'cause it takes ten times as long to STEAL (oops, I meant DOWNLOAD) a wav file as it does an MP3 :=) Steve
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
HUH??? Care to explain that one????????

WAVs are uncompressed digital audio files. MP3s are compressed using lossy compression techinques and as such, literally throw away a portion of the audio signal.....

From a sound quality point of view, WAVs are far superior to ANY MP3..........
Click to expand...

Lossy? listen to this mp3: www.nowhereradio.com/zeke/singles
(the name of the song is "get free") That is a 192k mp3.

And Mp3s are better than wav. files. (ON THE INTERNET THAT IS)
because if i encode my song to a wav. (which alot of music sites like mp3.com and nowhereradio.com will not take,) it takes alot more space up than a Mp3. (for ex: a 4:00 min song on a wav. file: 40mb. the same song on a mp3 file with the same quality: 6-7mb.) and if you encode a mp3 at 192k then i will sound just as good as a wav. file (or better)

BUT, in the studio, well that's a diffurent thing. in my studio, i would use wav. files more then any kind of file. (exp for internet :cool: ) there both good formats but they both have there on "teritory"

:cool:

ZEKE
 
Hey jimminy, nice music dude :) good writing. the acoustic guitar sounds good but you may want to try this: next time maybe add a little room revurb. enough to where you can hear it but not to much. And cut some mids around 500hz and 1khz.


Good job.
 
wrong zeke. think about what you are saying. wave files are larger because they contain more data. now continue with that train of thought and get back to the nubmeister.
 
An MP3 file never gonna be as good (in terms of quality sound) as WAV file...the MP3 file its a compressed format from a WAV file, so, i just find imposible that the compressed one result with best sound than the native uncompresed format: WAV or AIFF...
 
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